quoting:
CBers and CBers-Masquerading-As-Radio-Hams contribute
to the hobby of CB and not to the technical pursuit that is Ham Radio.

Those who are not technically motivated nor technically qualified
are unsuitable as Ham Radio licensees.
unquote:

you may be right - in Germany (per your path)?

But here in the USA, the justification for amateur radio spectrum and
existence is called PICON - public interest, convenience, or necessity.
The goal is communications at the most basic level. Technical pursuits or
qualifications are not a core concern of the licensing body (FCC).

You also have to be careful about such issues as "technically qualified",
since it requires someone to define who is qualified, what they need to be
qualified in, and why ;-)

The USA's licensing body (FCC) has defined a rather basic set of core
technical competencies for the entry level licenses, and most advanced
countries seem to have similar modest technical standards (the old Soviet
system may be an exception etc. where you had to build your own radio
station?).

Now flip thru an RSGB or ARRL handbook, and ask yourself how many of the
various modes and bands and projects have _you_ done? ;-) I am still doing
new stuff (VLF beacons, modulated lasers for field day's 3 modes credit
etc.), which means I am certainly not technically qualified in all the
areas of ham radio yet ;-) Plus they keep inventing new ones all the time.

in short, if you feel you are "technically competent" in (all of) ham
radio, you may not be paying enough attention to all that's going on. ;-)

Finally, when the chips are down and ham radio has to prove its value thru
emergency communications or whatever, there are lots of very technically
competent folks who aren't setup or interested or trained in providing
such communications. So the laurels often go to those who some might
deride as "appliance operators" who are able to provide such
communications. Many of those folks are just as elite and capable in
their own areas of ham radio as those with a more technical bent might be
in ours...

grins bobm

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* Robert Monaghan POB 752182 Southern Methodist Univ. Dallas Tx 75275 *
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